Here’s How To Short Amazon (Or Not)

Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN), the online retail giant, has seen its stock price skyrocket more than 50% over the last 12 months.

It has surged past the $1,000 price level, which was tricky to break through, and has continued to climb since then.

Many investors are looking at the euphoric Amazon stock price movement and wondering if now is a good time to short the stock.

The answer is no.

There’s never a good time to short a cult-like stock such as Amazon. It doesn’t trade on normal parameters, and it operates a business model that doesn’t have to generate a profitfor its stock to go up. These types of companies are almost impossible to short because of that.

But there is another way to profit, one I have shared with you in the past: not buying into the hype of the Amazon stock price.

Here’s what I mean…

Grocery Stocks Got Slammed

Back in June, Amazon announced it would acquire Whole Foods to disrupt the grocery sector. Many investors bought the hype and immediately downgraded all sorts of grocery-related stocks expecting Amazon’s competition to weigh on the industry.

Then, in late August, Amazon completed the acquisition ahead of schedule. Once again, grocery stocks got slammed.

I wrote an article on September 4 saying this bloodbath was your buying opportunity, and it paid off with an average gain of 15% since then on the five stocks I listed.

And out of the five stocks mentioned, The Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR), Sprouts Farmers Market Inc. (Nasdaq: SFM), Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT), Costco Wholesale Corp. (Nasdaq: COST) and SuperValu Inc. (NYSE: SVU), all but one has rallied basically 20% since then.

The one stock that is down is SuperValu, and even that stock popped 10% early on. Take a look: